Cello

(2005)4 stars

This South Korean slow-burner focuses on the household of Mi-jun, a music professor who has retired from playing the cello after her best friend and fellow cellist Tae-yeon is killed in an auto accident. One afternoon she gets harrassed by a student who received a bad grade from her (a teacher’s worst nightmare and biggest “are you f-ing kidding me?” moment). After this, weird things start happening, doled out in mere jumpy scares and “did I just see the wall dripping blood?” instances. 

At home she is greeted by a dark house which gives us a false scare: her two daughters, husband, and sister-in-law are just hiding in the creepy attic before singing “Happy Birthday” to her. Around the same time that Mi-jun’s life begins to unravel a mysterious and mute housekeeper is hired and her husband inquires more into the incidents of Tae-yeon’s death.

Catfreeek reviewed this in '08 though nobody graced it with any comments. I concede that the slow-builders can be less promising -- especially at 8pm on a Friday night when you just want cheap thrills and screams, which was my situation -- but I found that the writers of Cello didn't take the intellect of their audience for granted, and as the end credits began to roll I erupted with a thousand hypotheticals, and many more alternate story lines to fill in the gaps intended to be left a mystery.